Requiem (68 page)

‘The plane that dumped its load on Adrian Bell, he saw it clearly,’ she said. ‘He said it had a red diagonal stripe on one wing.’

‘I don’t remember a stripe.’

‘No,’ she agreed quickly as if she hadn’t expected him to.

She sat up on her haunches and pushed a hand through her hair. Her brightness had gone. ‘One of the reasons I’m up this weekend is to try to find a way of stopping the local authority from taking Adrian into care.’

‘Why would they want to take him into care?’

‘To give him “essential” treatment – essential psychiatric treatment, that is.’

‘Christ … Can they do that?’

‘Oh yes.’ She explained it to him. Her voice was flat and cool.

He remembered Alusha and the enforced swimming and the nameless drugs. ‘Well … if I can help at all … Can I?’

‘Ah.’ She gave a nervous chuckle. ‘You already have. I took some money out of the project – I didn’t think you’d mind, it’s not very much.’ She looked up to him for approval. ‘To pay their solicitor.’

He said he didn’t mind.

Far below, the sea had softened under a mackerel sky. The breeze had strengthened. Turning to face it, she said in a neutral voice: ‘They okayed Silveron for general use this week. MAFF – the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food – they think the stuff’s okay to be sprayed on food.’ She allowed herself a small snort of disgust. ‘Morton-Kreiger must have pulled some wires to get away with that one. They probably nobbled that twit Driscoll.’

Driscoll. He thought immediately of Susan, saw her walking through the rooms of the Kensington house, redecorating them with a curl of her hands, and moved the conversation onto different ground. ‘What about the project –
our
project?’ he asked. ‘No results?’

‘Not yet. And I’m afraid there won’t be any, not for a while.’ She sat up on her heels, eyes round and bright, head alert. The guard dog back on duty. ‘Maybe months.’

Here was the bad news then, the news she’d been preparing to tell him all day. He began to pack the bottles back into the cool-boxes.

‘It’s been a combination of things,’ she said, forcing some of the lightness back into her voice. ‘Unforeseen expenses – we’re running over budget, I’m afraid. But also there’s a problem with a licence. We’ve got to have this licence to get started, and there’s been a delay. I’d almost believe it was intentional, except …’ She trailed off, and the worries of the world came across her forehead in a sharp frown.

He stood up. ‘So?’ He knew what was coming, but he thought he’d ask anyway.

She clambered to her feet. As she rose, he reached down and picked up the rugs.

‘The delay – it’s going to cost a great deal. And we were running tight on the budget anyway.’ In her discomfort she couldn’t quite meet his eye. ‘There were so many unforeseen problems, things we couldn’t budget for. Everyone’s been great – the staff, trying so hard, working all hours, getting everything set up … But without that piece of paper it’s useless – we can’t even begin.’

A flurry of wind caught her hair and lifted it across her face. She pushed it impatiently away. ‘I’ve tried to find a way round it – God, I even thought of moving the whole thing abroad – but there’d be just as many problems.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘So near and yet so far isn’t in it.’ She gave a ragged laugh. ‘You know I’ve never cared about anything as much as I’ve cared about this. It’s not just Adrian, it’s not just all the other people, it’s the bloody injustice of it all. It makes me totally wild!’ She glared at him, daring him to disagree. ‘I know you think I’m totally obsessed – well, I am, I admit I am – but why not – why not? If this isn’t worth doing, then what is?’

The old Daisy, fiery as ever. She must have caught the look in his eye because she pulled back visibly. ‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,’ she said with sudden gravity. ‘I wouldn’t even ask.’

He didn’t reply immediately. Giving her the rugs to carry, he picked up the cool-boxes and started up the rise, using the time to go through the motions of conducting a brief debate with himself, although he already had a strong suspicion of what the outcome would be. His brain was quite rightly shouting caution: any fool could have told him it was crazy to let Daisy suck him deeper into what was fast looking like a doomed situation, complete with financial and organizational catastrophes. His brain shouted, but his mind wasn’t listening. It was tuned to his instincts, and they were saying: To hell with it. It was partly stubbornness but it was also a fascination with Daisy’s uncomplicated view of justice, a need to believe that life could be reduced to basic moral issues. He rather liked the idea of an anarchic one-woman campaign against the world. Daisy and Goliath.

Then of course there was the plane, the plane that prowled around the edges of his memory. The plane heading in over the loch.

He was nearing the top of the rise. He could hear Daisy’s footsteps coming up behind. He turned suddenly.

‘How much?’

She stared at him. He noticed her eyes, which were flecked with gold. ‘Three hundred thousand. Well – ’ she grimaced. ‘That is – I
think
.’

He put down the cool-boxes and looked back at the sea for a long moment. ‘All right.’

Searching his face for confirmation, she gave a low gasp and, dropping the rugs, threw her arms round his neck and pulled him into a large and very tight hug. Her body was small and warm against his. Slowly, not quite sure what he was feeling, he put his arms lightly round her, then just as gently withdrew them and pulled away.

Picking up the cool-boxes, he started off again. The Bell came into view over the ridge. Daisy caught up with him again.

‘This licence,’ he asked her, ‘it’ll come through all right, will it?’

‘What?’ Her face was radiant, her eyes shining. ‘Oh yes,’ she panted. ‘We’ve checked. Should be quite soon.’

‘What is it, this licence, anyway?’

‘Oh, it’s a permit really, it’s – ’ She seemed to hesitate. ‘Well, we’re not allowed to start work without it.’

‘Why? What’s it for?’

‘It’s – to ensure that things get done properly.’ That suggestion of evasion again. ‘To make sure one follows the rules.’

A thought came to him, a thought so appalling and so obvious that he knew it must be true. ‘What rules?’

‘For the tests.’

Grinding to a halt he looked down into her upturned face. ‘What kind of tests?’

‘Well … the mandatory tests. The ones that have to be done for all pesticides – ’

He felt cold, the buffeting wind seemed to pass straight through him. ‘Like?’ he asked sharply.

She was pale, she knew what was coming. ‘Like the LD50 test – ’

‘What’s that?’

She tried to pass it off lightly. ‘It’s to see what dosage is needed to kill fifty per cent of the sample. Though you don’t actually
kill
fifty per cent, you can work it out statistically without that – ’

‘Sample? You mean, animals?’

‘Rats. Or mice. Usually rats.’

He stared at her, dumbfounded. ‘
Animals?
’

‘Look, we wouldn’t choose to use
any
animals, not in a thousand years, but we’re forced to. That’s the system.’

‘The
system
?’

‘Yes! Animal tests are the only kind they recognize – ’

He still couldn’t take it in. ‘Jesus,’ he kept saying. ‘
Jesus
.’

She began to rally. ‘Look, every pesticide used on every vegetable has been tested that way. Every time you buy a carrot or a potato or an orange, anything that’s not organic, you’re condoning the system – ’

His anger had been held back by his surprise, but now it surged up in his throat. ‘Stuff the system! Christ – ’ He could barely speak. ‘All my money –
my
money – and you never even
told
me!’

‘You said you didn’t want to know! You said you didn’t want to be involved!’

‘Oh, come
on
!’

‘Anyway, I thought you’d realize – ’

‘God!’ Unable to handle his rage, he twisted away and strode towards the helicopter. The pilot was already at the controls, his headset on, making his checks.

She ran to catch up with him. ‘What do you expect us to do? If there was another way, then we’d
do
it!’

Reaching the Bell, he threw the cool-boxes into the storage compartment and scoffed: ‘Just tell me how I’m expected to get up and sing the songs I sing while you’re in that lab murdering animals in
my
name. Christ!’ – he beat a fist against the side of the helicopter – ‘my stuff’s all about
not
doing things like that!’

The pilot put his head out of the door and, making a circling motion with his hand, questioned whether he should start up. Nick nodded abruptly. A moment later there was a whine, a cough and the rotor blades began to turn.

‘What about Adrian and all those other people?’ Daisy shouted above the gathering noise. ‘What about your wife?’

‘Don’t you give me arguments like that!’ he roared. ‘Don’t you bloody dare!’

She pulled back as if he had threatened her. Her lip wobbled, she mouthed air. ‘But it’s not as if … I mean, they’re only
rats
! Just rats!’

He slammed the storage door shut and checked the clips. ‘And where do dogs and cats come in the okay stakes,’ he yelled. ‘And monkeys?’ His voice sounded ugly; he felt ugly. ‘Before people, or after?’

He should have left it there, he felt confused enough as it was. But, pushing past her towards the open door, he couldn’t resist a parting shot. ‘Just imagine how the kids’d feel,’ he cried, his voice rising harshly over the din, ‘the kids who buy my music.
Betrayed
. They get ripped off the whole time as it is. Imagine how
they’d
feel.’

‘You mean it wouldn’t look good for you?’

‘Yes – no –
Jesus
– ’ But there was enough truth in what she’d said for him to feel rage at hearing it. ‘I see!’ he proclaimed savagely, ‘I see!’ having no idea what it was he was meant to be seeing.

Waving her fiercely into the back seat, he jumped in beside the pilot and gestured for them to leave.

She didn’t put her headset on and later, when the pilot pointed out something of interest on the ground, she made no response.

T
HE MEDICAL SECRETARY
went so far as to admit that Dr Konrad was somewhere in the city of Reading, either in the hospital or the nearby university. But his exact location, whether he had received Daisy’s message, whether he’d have time to see her – these facts were not immediately available.

After an hour Daisy took to hunting the corridors of the hospital. Dr Konrad, oncologist lion, had the advantage of perfect camouflage and good cover, but a passing houseman eventually pointed her towards the right department and she was rewarded with a sighting of a short hunched figure loping head-down across a corridor. He was through the doors of men’s surgical and into a side room before she could catch him, but a waiting game was one she knew how to win and after fifteen minutes and a brief spurt across the fifth-floor lobby she cornered him in a staff-only lift.

‘Dr Konrad?’

He looked defensive, then, seeing no possibility of escape, gave a slight nod. He was a stocky man of about fifty with blunt features, large hands and ruddy cheeks. He looked more like a bricklayer than a cancer specialist.

She introduced herself. ‘It’s about the Knowles case,’ she said. ‘May I ask why you changed your mind?’

‘Changed my mind? I didn’t change my mind,’ he said briskly. ‘The evidence was quite simply inadequate. Regretfully, there was nothing more I could do.’

‘But the affidavit – a year ago you were prepared to swear to it.’

‘No, no,’ he said with authority. ‘Not swear to it – that’s quite wrong. All I said was that I would do what I could to help. If Mrs Knowles and her solicitor thought I was saying something else then I’m afraid they were mistaken.’

This wasn’t the impression Daisy had got from his letter to Mrs Knowles last December but she knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere by saying so. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘But tell me, do you still believe Aldeb was the causative agent?’

The lift slowed. His eyes flicked to the floor indicator and he was out through the opening doors.

‘Aldeb,’ she prompted, keeping pace with him as he strode off. ‘You think it was responsible?’

‘I thought it was the most
likely
cause,’ he said cautiously. ‘But that was just my opinion. Which isn’t worth a great deal, I’m afraid, not without some hard statistics from the epidemiologists, some independent laboratory evidence.’

‘The Americans have found enough laboratory evidence to ban Aldeb.’

‘That was only with massive doses, wasn’t it? Not conclusive.’

‘Apparently not.’ She tried again. ‘Your opinion was worth a great deal, Dr Konrad.’

‘Not on its own.’

‘Well, the Knowleses’ counsel certainly thought so.’

He slowed, his expression yielded into something almost apologetic. He stopped and said confidingly: ‘Look here, without scientific evidence I’d have had nothing to back me up, Miss Field. The other side’s lawyers would seize on me straight away, they’d demolish me. I’ve appeared in these cases before. I know what happens.’